Vadodara- The Pride of Gujarat

     Economy:

  Major industries include petrochemicals, engineering, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, plastics, IT and foreign exchange.

   Out of the 4 major PSUs of Gujarat, 3 are in Vadodara, GSFC, Gujarat Refinery and ONGC.

  Has the highest share of well-established large scale industries in Gujarat, some of the popular names are as follows-

TBEA

 ABB, Collabera, IOC, TBEA (Chinese), SunPharma, Alembic Pharmacy (oldest pharma firm), Sarabai Chemicals, Jyoti Laboratories, GM manufacturing plant(US), Reliance Industries, Apollo, Schneider (French), Siemens (German), Alstom (French), Bombardier (Canadian), L&T, GIPCL, Mahindra etc.

   Due to the good presence of these major firms who hire on national basis, a large number of well-educated crowd have settled in Vadodara from outside Gujarat making it the most cosmopolitan of all the cities in the state. Hence the general public has a more sophisticated taste than other cities.

   Bank of Baroda is the second largest bank in India after SBI. It was established in 1908 by Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad with regards to keeping the city protected from recession prone economies of those times. It is currently at Forbes rank of 801, worldwide.

    Architecture:

Rulers of Vadodara

   Vadodara flourished under the rule of Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad III, from 1875 to 1939, is no secret.  With exotic buildings that came up which also have stood the test of time with its splendid designs have defined Vadodara’s skyline for more than century now. There are 10 palaces in all in Vadodara which is huge considering the size of the city. Many of the palaces have now become colleges or government buildings.

Laxmi Vilas Palace

   Laxmi Vilas Palace was constructed by the same king in 1890. This palace is the largest private dwelling built till date, more than 4 times the size of Buckingham Palace. It has elevators constructed in those times making it one of the most ultra-modern palaces then. It is spread over 500 acres in lush greenery. This palace boasts of teak floored tennis court, Moti baugh cricket ground, Badminton courts and 2 Tennis clay courts. It also has a world class golf course which has royal membership of around 300 members worldwide.

   Out of the 28 planetariums in India, Sardar Patel Planetarium is the oldest, also constructed by the Maharaja the third.

    Ajwa dam was built in the early 20th century and was the first such in the state to provide tapped water to the Barodians, a grand idea by the Gaekwad. Even today it provides water to 300,000 residents towards the eastern parts of the city.

 

Vadodara Bus Stand

     Culture and Sports:

    Garba is one of the most celebrated festival in Vadodara when it invites an influx of more than 4 lakhs from different parts of the country and also from outside. Maa Shakti Garba venue holds Limca Book Record for having 38,850 dancers at its venue on a single night. The food stalls and the restaurants stay open till 2 at night with the roads clogged with traffic jams that even traffic police can’t control. This goes on for the 9 days of Navratri which has become a signature attraction for Vadodara in more ways than one.

   This city is one of the very few district teams that has its own Ranji cricket team which has won 5 Ranji trophies, 4th highest after Bombay, Karnataka and Delhi. Vadodara has produced the most prolific cricketers for the Indian team. Some of them are as follows:

    Kiran More, Nayan Mongia, Vijay Hazare, Anshuman Gaekwad (2 times national caoch), Yousuf and Irfan Pathan etc.

     MSU:

   MSU is the 3rd oldest college in the country established in 1881 as Baroda Science College by Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad III. It has developed into becoming the largest university in Gujarat. It has been ranked in top 10 by multiple periodicals. Their Fine Arts department ranked in top 3 consistently. The Dome shaped building is the 2nd largest dome in India. Houses the largest and one of the most awarded libraries in Gujarat.

Sursagar Lake

     They have some of the most renowned alumni recognised all India:

   Sam Pitroda (inventor, entrepreneur), Dadasaheb Phalke (father of Indian cinema), Venkatraman Ramkrishnan (Nobel Laureate for Chemistry, 2009), Kamlesh Lulla (Earth Head, NASA), Vinoba Bhave (advocate for human rights), Vishal Sikka (CEO, Infosys) etc.

a. Other than these, Vadodara also has the maximum amount of green cover in Gujarat third only to Gandhinagar (54%) and Bhavnagar (21.35%) with 16.29% of its land under trees, where A’bad or Surat lag with roughly 4% of green cover, this also helps in getting down the temperatures of summer to bearable limits unlike other cities where it easily shoots to 45 degrees, and attracting adequate rainfall. The traffic is not as bad as other cities either, due to the disciplined driving owing to the high educated working class population.

b. In a 2011 survey, Vadodara was voted as the 2nd safest city for women after Chandigarh in an online poll that had 6,167 respondents.

c. Vadodara has a relatively very good sex ratio (921) standing at 5th and 1st among the big cities of A’bad (898), Surat (756) and Rajkot (908).

d. Average literacy rate of Vadodara city is 90.63% which is the highest compared to A’bad (88.29%), Surat (87.89%) and Rajkot (87.80%).

e. Vadodara is the first city to have International Bus terminus with 7 screen multiplex (PVR) and high-end cafes.

f.  Vadodara railway station is a junction and is the busiest railway station of Gujarat with more than 150 trains passing through the station every day.